One of the most striking take-aways from this week's U.S. Supreme Court hearings on the healthcare reform law was the steadfast insistence on the part of Republicans to deny affordable and accessible medical treatment to as many people as possible.The party is determined to maintain the status quo of healthcare being a privilege and not a right — putting us at odds with just about every other developed nation on the planet and, not coincidentally, resulting in about 50 million people being uninsured.

Santorum's 3-year-old daughter has a severe genetic disorder called Trisomy 18. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, half of all infants with the ailment do not survive beyond the first week of life. "Some children have survived to the teenage years, but with serious medical and developmental problems," it says.

Luckily for this little girl, her father has reported earning more than $3.6 million since he left Congress in 2007, so she'll probably never want for insurance coverage.

But do Santorum and his Republican allies truly think that others who lack such good fortune deserve less, or perhaps no, medical care? Do they believe that other children with preexisting conditions have less of a right to treatment?

Or is there perhaps room to acknowledge that simple standards of human decency make clear that society has certain obligations, and in the United States, as of this moment, those obligations are not being met?

"Determining how justices (or judges) will vote based on their questions at oral argument is a fool’s errand. Pundits’ speculation is (1) just that, speculation, (2) entertainment for the masses, (3) spin from those who have long since chosen sides, or (4) all of the above.Read more